Other Views: Tone-deaf president

Friday

Sep 28, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Tone-deaf president

President Barack Obama's critics are having fun with his lawyerly equivocation during an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, when he said as president he bears responsibility "for everything . . . to some degree."

But the bigger gaffe came in the first part of that response, when the president said his "biggest disappointment" has been the failure to change "the tone" in Washington.

"If you ask me what's my biggest disappointment, it's that we haven't changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked," he told CBS.

No doubt partisan sniping isn't helping the nation solve its most pressing problems.

But his "biggest disappointment" is that people who live and work inside the Beltway aren't being nicer to each other?

Is he serious?

It isn't persistently sluggish economic growth - or an unemployment rate that has proved resistant to the administration's repeated attempt at "stimulus"? The fact that 23 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed?

It isn't the failure to reform Medicare and Social Security in an attempt to shrink the trillion-dollar annual budget deficit?

It isn't the fact that despite the administration's diplomatic outreach, Iran appears closer than ever to developing a nuclear weapon?

- Boston Herald

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.